drum tracking

wow, time is flying.  is my chinese improving? i sure hope so…maybe not as fast as i would like it to, but i think it’s improving.  my students say that my chinese sounds really good when i’m mad and/or i yell.  maybe i should just talk really loud when i speak now, but, man, that would be annoying.  but no, seriously, i really don’t know why my chinese doesn’t sound good when i’m speaking at a normal volume.  my teacher says that i tend to mumble a lot. i think that comes from a bad habit i have when speaking english.  i have so much i want to say, but no time to say it, so i just say it really fast…but since english is my first language, it’s fairly comprehensible.

i’ve been trying to slow down when speaking, but it’s really hard.  you know that look when someone gives you when you’re not getting your point across? that “god, please finish what you’re saying so i can talk” sort of look?  i get that a lot here.  i’m assuming it’s because i’m chinese.  i’m at the point now where i can basically understand everything, if i’m really paying attention.  what i’ve come to realize is that my mind tends to wander a lot more these days.  there’s just so much going on in our lives that it’s hard not to just zone out sometimes!  see, even now, i’m going off topic.  anyway, what i’m trying to say is that i feel like a giant idiot a lot of the time when people speak really fast to me because they assume i’m fluent…and while i can understand everything they say, it’s hard to try to respond with the same speed.  i always start off ok, but then it becomes this giant train wreck of horrible pronunciation and a total disregard of proper grammar. i’ll try to start slow, but then they end up speaking on my behalf. it’s basically the “you’re speaking too slow so i’m just going to put some words in your mouth so you don’t have to suffer through the rest of this sentence” people here must be psychic because more times than none, they say exactly what i’m trying to say.  amazing.

so, with that being said, i think i’ve improved quite a bit. i can get around to doing just about anything without having to go with someone who can speak better than i can.  i can carry on a decent conversation with a friend that is patient enough to let me drill out some sentences. my vocabulary has increased exponentially, some words come a lot easier than others, but it’s just something that i’ll have to keep building on.  i still find myself speaking english a lot of the time because, well, a lot of things are just funnier in english.  people often ask,”why don’t you and annie just speak chinese 100% of the time?”  and our answer usually is “well, because 1) we’re used to speaking english to each other and 2) about 95% of the humor that we enjoy, is in english.” we plan to live out here for quite a while, so i’m positive that my chinese will be pretty good in a few years.  i hate to sound vain, but i feel like pick up on things fairly quickly…except when it comes to language.  so at least i expect it to come slowly.

anyway, just wanted to post up some pictures of our last day of spring quarter.  met some really awesome people. pretty sad that a lot of them won’t be returning to school next quarter but we all hang out on the weekends now, which is awesome!  ok ok, enough writing.

eating some spanish egg thing, which was apparently pretty tasty

last supper at an italian restaurant nearby (which wasn’t THAT great)

all of us with our teacher

actually, ya, i’m very sad that i won’t be in the next class with any of them (because i am moving down a level — i guess that’s the reason for this whole post).  why am i moving down a level? this class was way too hard for me…and a lot of the subject matter wasn’t very useful in daily conversation (which i need improvement on). it was really frustrating at times knowing that i was at the bottom of the class.  hopefully next quarter i’ll do better ^^

not very happy at the moment about this one.  just found out this morning that one of my oldest friends, james liu, passed away last night.  what makes it really hard is that i can’t physically be there to support all his friends and family through all of this.  anyway, i’m going to get on with my dedication to this awesome dude.

2002 @ band banquet dinner

james liu, pictured on the right, was one of the first friends i made in marching band.  for those of you who knew us back then, james, mike, dave and i were otherwise known as nchync, as racist as that sounds, we were still in high school so give us a break!  at every band function, school dance etc., we would always request “it’s gonna be me” and proceed to wow (or embarrass) everyone who was fortunate enough to watch us do the whole dance verbatim to how nsync did it.  i really wish i had pictures of us doing the dance but unfortunately they’re all in a photo album at home.  one of my fondest memories was at band camp, when mike and i were listening to nsync in our room and you came in and knew ALL the lyrics to “it makes me ill”

at jamba juice – 2000 (10 years ago!)

*edit: i found a picture of us dancing

after our junior years, we kind of dropped the whole pseudo name and went on to just hanging out outside of band. from the classroom to the PC bang we went.  nights of diablo II and counter-strike are all i can really remember. oh yes, and DDR, oh god, the DDR. i remember that time when we had a band trip to disneyland and we just played DDR the whole time.  it was awesome. we even had a little crowd going for us.

after i went to college, i feel like we had a little bit of a falling out…due to some stupid post-high school drama that i’m sure you were sort of just dragged into.  it didn’t matter though, because a few years later we saw each other again and it was almost as if nothing happened.  that’s how good our friendship was. i would occasionally go down to UCI to visit you and everyone else and we would have a blast just hanging out in your room, watching shitty online videos or reminiscing about the ridiculous things we used to do.

@ uci, 2004

after 2004, we sort of went our separate ways.  last i heard was that you moved out of PV and that you were still working at disneyland (which i heard was a blast).  i really wish i could have seen you in action, working at the indiana jones ride you were always talking about.  we talked occasionally online to catch up with each other but in reality, i don’t think i had seen you since this last picture, which makes me pretty sad.

james, you were a great friend and person.  a lot of my favorite memories from my past involve you and i’m so grateful that you were there whenever i needed you.  you will be missed.  i dedicate these last words to you:

“i was hangin’ with the fellas, saw you with your new boyfriend, it made me jealous. i was hoping that i’d never see you with him, but it’s all good cuz i’m glad that i met him, heh, cuz now i know the competition’s very slim to none, and i can tell by looking that he’s not the one. he’s not the type you said you liked, his style’s wack, clothes are bad. c’mon girl, let him go, i want you back”

stay tuned for more!!

woke up this morning to what sounded like someones building getting totally demolished by A CRANE….

oh wait, it WAS someones building getting ripped apart by the arm of a crane… (11:00am)

the clearest shot i could get was from our shower window…so i stood there for like 30 minutes just watching.

he knocked down a giant piece of the wall, picked it up, and started using it as a tool to knock down more stuff!

yea!

what i would pay to just spend a few minutes controlling one of these things………..

---

update #0: the beginning (for reference)

update #1: 4 hours later….(3:30pm)

update #2 (4:30pm)

can’t stop watching………..

update #3 (24 hours later)

update #4: i think they’re about done.

and that is how you properly demolish a building in 24 hours!